forsaking all others
by ulstergirl
Summary: Nancy returns to her husband after a long trip abroad with someone else.


**This is a PG-13 version of the original story, which was written for the prompt "separation." You can find the full version on my AO3 page, if you're of the appropriate age.**

* * *

Four months. That's what Frank says it is when Nancy mentions it, but it's longer than that; it's been four months, six days, and eight hours since she's seen Ned in person. Oh, she's seen him via Skype, especially when she broke down three days into the trip and apologized, and Ned said he was sorry at the same time she did, so their words were just overlapping in relief—and though she knows he wants her home, she had agreed, and she kept her word.

At first, the ache of missing him was so intense she felt like she was in shock, almost numb to it, almost like it wasn't real. She had thought about him when she could, when they were taking breaks from the case, sharing meals and brainstorming, in those slivers of time when she was allowed to breathe for a little while. They're on the trail of a terrorist group, and she had sensed it even before they begun, but it's proven more and more true: it's like pulling a loose bit of yarn on a sweater. There is no end, no clean break, there's just more and more.

And she's no longer numb to the sheer longing she feels for him, for his arms around her, to be _with him_ again. It makes her impatient, fidgety, distracted. It's persistent as her heartbeat. She knows there is only one cure, and that Frank won't like it, but she's just as sure that she is just another warm body. If they want to brainstorm, they can just as easily do so with her over the phone. The three days she spent in the hospital last week after the explosion, rigged just to take out the three of them, had only made her _need_ to get home all the sharper.

The terrorist cell has stopped targeting civilians, children. Now they're after their pursuers. Interpol sent a unit to Ukraine and it's bigger than them now, Frank and Joe are delighted as kids on Christmas morning—and Nancy wants to go _home_.

On the flight home she feels like she reaches some kind of breaking point; only hours separate her from him, but it's too much. Each second seems to take an entire minute to pass. She tries focusing on anything else, on the tangle of clues in her notebook, but she knows she won't be able to focus again until she sees him.

When she left, Chicago was in the last weeks of a terribly cold winter, and it had seemed that spring would never come. Now it's summer again, heat shimmering off the asphalt, short sleeves and sunglasses, beach bags and sandals everywhere. For the last leg of her flight, out of New York, she's surrounded by Americans, most of them returning home like she is. But they aren't feeling the echo of an explosion in their ribs, and they aren't daydreaming about a tall, dark-haired man who has let her know every single day that he's thinking about her. They're flipping through copies of the airline magazine, staring fixedly at mass-market paperbacks and ereaders and cell phones, and she's been staring laptop screens, computer screens, cell phone screens for so damn long that she's exhausted and worn out. She wants to turn herself off for a while, to just _live_ without this voice in the back of her head insisting that only _she_ and _they_ can stop the bad guys, that without her furious will and ceaseless vigilance, more people will be hurt, more people will die, and it will be her fault. No rest, no relief, no endgame, just constant pounding stress and the hope that they can achieve something worthwhile.

But this isn't her life. This is _their_ life, Frank and Joe's. They've been with Network so long that they hardly remember what it is to be without it, and Nancy told them once: _it's a nice place, but I wouldn't want to live there_. But she has been, and four months was three months too long.

She dressed comfortably for the trans-Atlantic flight, and after she passed through security and boarded the first plane, she fastened the locket Ned gave her years before around her neck. The pilot announces that they're a half hour away from O'Hare and her anticipation sings, almost _screams_ in her, so loud that she doesn't understand how no one else senses it. She's ready to come out of her skin and the flight attendants are coming around to collect empty pretzel wrappers and drained plastic highball cups, and she's _so close, so close._

Once the plane lands, it's worse. Other passengers fill the aisles, moving sluggishly, taking their time removing luggage and bags from the overhead bins and from beneath their seats. They have to wait a few more minutes for the skyway to arrive. Finally, _finally_, the first passengers begin to stream off the plane, and Nancy's phone finally connects to the local tower again.

_I'm here._

All her important belongings are with her, in her carry-on bag, strapped over her shoulder. Her larger suitcase is in the checked baggage. She's not tugging a wheeled cart behind her, so she maneuvers around the businessmen with their long strides and the meandering families, moving as fast as she can without breaking into a full run, until she sees him—and then she can't help it, she runs to him with her eyes pricking with tears, and his arms are open.

They crash together and she gasps, in a momentary flash of pain, in the sensation of finally relaxing for the first time in what feels like a year, for the first time since their separation. He folds her in his arms and picks her up in a tight hug, and she feels his cheek against hers, his _skin_, oh God...

She clings to him, her fingers curling against the nape of his neck, just feeling him breathe. He whispers her name and she can't help it, she laughs and buries her face against his neck.

"Please," he whispers. "Don't ever let it be that long again, baby."

"It won't be," she replies. "I promise."

Waiting at the baggage carousel isn't so bad with him beside her, his arm draped over her shoulders, her head resting against him. The airport is warm and noisy, and the PA system chimes with another announcement every few minutes, but she doesn't care. He tells her he's sorry, again, for the fight before she left, and she apologizes again too, and it feels different in person. She's jet-lagged and she feels like she's walking around in a dream, even more so because she's with him after so, so terribly long.

They keep touching, hands joined and fingers interlaced, after they claim her bag and walk out to the parking lot, where her car is waiting. He drives because she's weightless and the world is golden and soft around her, she's delirious with joy and she's _home_ and how, oh God how had she ever left the way she had, how had she ever thought a stupid fight and her stubborn pride were worth it.

The apartment has been his, not theirs, while she's been away; she sees the subtle signs but doesn't care. The comforter has been tossed over the bed, but it isn't truly made, the trash needs to be taken out, the junk mail is forming a precarious tower on the table near the front door. It's small and they both want something bigger, but it's their _home _and there will be time, it's only their first year—for a few more months, anyway.

She tugs him with her to the bed, stepping out of her shoes, only releasing his hand so she can tug her shirt over her head. She strips down to her underwear and he does too, climbing into bed with her. She moves onto her side to face him and slides her leg between his, nestling against him, clinging to him like just his sheer proximity can make up for the loneliness and guilt and sheer need she felt while they were apart.

He holds her, and it's too soon to talk about all of it, even the things he doesn't know yet: the fear she felt on waking in the hospital and realizing that she came so close to dying without holding him again; the way Frank looked at her when she saw him in the airport on her arrival and the way her pride and anger over her fight with Ned had made her relish it for an hour or two; the few nights she had really honestly let herself consider whether they had married too young, whether they had rushed into it, whether they truly were right for each other, whether the separation should be permanent.

Marriage is hard. It's harder than she had ever thought it would be. She's not used to compromising, not even for him. But she fears more the person she is without him and losing what they have together, frustrating and complicated as it might be. For every fight, every shouting match, she can think of five of the good times, the little gestures, the flowers, the notes and cards. Breakfast in bed, foot rubs, the comforting circle of his arms on nights she had no strength left.

She knows their relationship isn't perfect, but that's okay. There will be other nights when he hasn't loaded the dishwasher, or when she eats the last cookie, or when they have to talk about whether they can afford to go to the movies. There will be days when nothing has gone right for her, nights when he's irritable and wants nothing more than to watch the game. Realizing that she wants to be with him hasn't fixed everything; it hasn't fixed much at all. But she realizes now that it's worth fighting for. This is worth fighting for. It would be easier to give up, but it would mean never knowing this joy again.

She falls into a deep sleep for the first time in a long time, and when she wakes the light has changed and her head is full of gritty static; her equilibrium won't be fully restored until she's had a full night of sleep, and when she stretches she still feels like she's moving underwater, but she turns back into his arms, cuddling against him despite the heat.

"Hey," he whispers.

"Hey," she whispers back. He brings his hand up and the angle of her jaw fits against the join of his hand and thumb, his index finger against her cheek, his thumb gently brushing up from her chin. The gesture is familiar, and she feels the smooth warmth of his wedding band against her skin and closes her eyes. He kisses her eyebrow, the bridge of her nose, just beneath her eye, and she stretches again, arching and marveling again at how they fit together, how _right_ it is. She was so close to losing this.

"I'm hungry," he murmurs, and she can't help smiling. He kisses the corner of her mouth. "But I don't want to let you go."

"Mmm. I'm a little hungry too," she admits. "That turkey croissant over the Atlantic was a long time ago."

"Hamburgers? Or grilled chicken."

"Mmm. Hamburger. I don't remember the last time I had good food. So be careful with it, Nickerson." She's grinning when he growls, rolling over and tickling her ribs, and when she opens her eyes they're tangled together and he's all she can see. She chuckles, but then she reaches up and strokes the face she remembers almost as well as her own, studying his eyes.

He kisses the tip of her nose. "Be right up."

He grabs his shorts and pulls them on when he gets up, and Nancy sits up too, sweeping her hair out of her face, scooping it into a ponytail and then letting it tumble down again. "I think I'm gonna take a quick shower," she calls to him. "I feel like I have sixteen hours of germs on me."

"Mmm. Thanks for that," he calls back. She hears a few pans clatter, and he mutters a curse.

The only real rooms are the bedroom and the bathroom; the rest of the apartment is open and cluttered with their combined belongings. Nancy doesn't feel like unpacking yet, so she digs through her drawers until she finds her last clean underwear and takes it to the bathroom with her. A clean towel is already hung up for her, beside his air-dried one. She hikes up the window to let some of the condensation out—the exhaust fan rattles like an angry garbage disposal—and climbs into the tub. He's bought a new shampoo and conditioner set since she's been gone, and she feels a little pang when she sees it. She spots a new bottle of shaving cream, too. Her razor is rusted, and after her shower she throws it out, digging under the sink for another one so she can shave her legs. In her haste to pack and catch her flight, she hadn't had time.

When she comes out of the bathroom towel-drying her hair, her legs so smooth they gleam, she notices what she didn't when they were coming in, when she was exhausted and focused only on him. A large bookcase, one she recognizes as having come from Ned's parents' house, is in the corner, and the books they had piled on their painted-board-and-cinder-block makeshift bookcase are on it, along with a few mementos from her cases. A bouquet in a plain glass vase she recognizes as one of theirs is on the coffee table; the bouquet itself is new, and she recognizes that mix of cheap daisies, carnations, and a single rose as coming from the tiny market just down the street. Stacked beside it are three small wrapped presents, and on the other side is an emptied peanut-butter jar, a few beads of adhesive from the removed label still sticking to the sides. A red gift ribbon is stuck to the lid.

The apartment smells like hamburger grease, and she hears the inviting sizzle, but she can't help looking at the jar.

"It's ready," Ned calls, and takes a few steps into the living room area when he sees her. "It's okay. That can wait."

Nancy smiles, hanging up the towel before she goes to their bedroom and pulls on some bleach-spattered running shorts and a tank top, gathering her hair into a loose messy bun. She sees a text from Frank on her phone before she plugs it in, and replies to it, telling him that she landed safely, she's home, and she'll call him tomorrow. Then she walks away from it. She doesn't even realize that the sudden tension is draining from her rigid spine as she does.

He's clearing the table so they can sit down at it when she walks into the kitchen, and she grabs a plate. Then she spots the cupcake carrier on the countertop, and sees the silhouette of what she hopes are cupcakes inside. "Mmm?" she asks, tipping her head in that direction.

"No dessert before you've cleared your plate, young lady."

"Oh, so there _will_ be dessert," she says, crossing to the refrigerator. She sees a mixing bowl, an empty measuring cup, and the beaters for the hand mixer in the sink, and her eyebrows rise. So he baked for her. She's impressed.

Then she sees the two store-bought cans of frosting, one chocolate and one lemon, on a shelf in the refrigerator, and hopes that he at least called his mother before he started.

She can count on him to have a few hamburger toppings on hand, and she pulls out the regular mayonnaise, her low-fat mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, a bag of salad mix that is actually still pretty decent, and a jar of pickle chips. The cheese is already melted on top of their burgers, and while she wishes they had tomato, she doesn't say anything.

"I would've bought you a tomato, but they were expensive," he says when she brings them all to the table. "Sorry. The hamburger and chicken were bad enough..." He sighs.

She loops an arm around him and gives him a squeeze. "I'm not complaining," she says, standing on her tiptoes to give him a kiss on the cheek. "This looks great. Thanks."

He shrugs, serving his own hamburgers onto buns. "I wanted to clean the apartment before you came in, but I didn't get very far."

"It's all right, hon. The flowers helped distract me."

He smiles at her. "Glad you like them."

When she takes her first bite of her cheeseburger, dressed the way she likes, she actually moans a little. "Oh God," she sighs. "Mmm. I love sampling food when I go abroad—and I love tasting a good old hamburger when I get back. Good job, babe."

He actually beams a little. "It is pretty good," he says happily.

"The bookcase? Did it come from your parents' house?"

He nods, and she serves herself a handful of chips as he explains. "Mom went to an estate sale and found this enormous glass-fronted display case, and so she gave us that one. I thought it looked pretty good."

"It does. Much nicer than what we had."

He steals a chip from her plate before he takes a handful for himself; she steals a chip from him in retaliation, chuckling when he feint a swipe at her. She didn't think she was that hungry, but she finishes her entire burger and almost all her chips. When she takes the last sip of water from her glass, he rises to bring the pitcher to the table and refill it.

"Thanks."

He's about to sit back down when his cell phone chirps, and he apologizes three times before he goes to read the text. When he returns to the table, still looking down at his phone's screen, he's smiling a little.

"So. I told Bess and George you'd be back, and they want to know if you might want to go out to lunch tomorrow."

"Something tells me it's not just lunch."

Ned tilts his head. "Like they've had time to arrange anything else."

Nancy crosses her arms, her lips tilting up. "Uh-huh. I've known them forever. Give them twelve hours' warning and they can set up almost anything. And it's just lunch?"

Ned crosses his heart with his finger, but he's smiling at her. "I mean, I'll drive you. And you're supposed to 'dress cute,' whatever that means."

"Mmm-hmm." Ned's finishing his second hamburger when Nancy takes a bite of another chip, then glances over at the cake container. "I've cleared ninety-five percent of my plate," she tells him, and smiles. "Almost enough?"

"Okay. Go ahead."

She brings the cake container over to the table and lifts the lid. Half the cupcakes are frosted with lemon, the other half with chocolate. The combination of smells is still a little strange, but she's relieved. "So what's this for?"

He swallows the last bite of his burger. "Because we didn't have a chance to celebrate your birthday before you left. So, happy birthday, Nan. I'm sorry they aren't very pretty."

She smiles. "As long as they're edible, I'm happy, Nickerson." She rises and presses a kiss on the crown of his head before she brings the carton of milk to the table, pouring them both a little.

She never thought about it, when she was growing up in her father's house. Milk isn't cheap, not on their grocery budget. Hamburger and chicken aren't cheap, and steak certainly isn't cheap. She found a "dining on a budget" cookbook at a thrift shop during a visit with Bess, and over a few months she perfected casseroles bulked up by noodles, potatoes, rice, beans, and canned soups, because her husband has an incredible appetite, and during that last week before payday, they don't have much to spare. At first, Edith Nickerson's gifts of clearly untouched and freshly prepared "leftover" entrées and pots of homemade soup had irritated Nancy, and the invitations to Sunday lunch were hard to turn down, but their parents understand what they're going through, and they're just trying to help.

Nancy resented it. But her paying jobs aren't steady, and when she's frustrated and depressed by their financial situation, it only makes Ned feel worse. When she was gone, at least he was only supporting himself—but her bills had been left behind too: credit card payments, insurance payments, car payments. Frank and Joe never seem to care very much, but they're on payroll and she is just their occasionally paid consultant.

It was another epiphany she had, half a world away from him, something else she had to make herself tell him. They don't have what their parents have, and that's okay. One day, she hopes they will. It's just not yet.

And the decision—no, the discussion she wants to have with him, and the decision she hopes they make together—is a big part of that.

"So it's okay?"

She plucks a lemon-frosted cupcake out of the carrier, smearing her fingers with frosting in the process, and smiles at him. "This means a lot more to me than some fancy store-bought cake," she tells him. "You actually made it for me. I think that's pretty awesome."

"I hope they're good. I think they're pretty good," he admits, plucking a chocolate one from the container.

"You've already tasted one?"

"I had to!" he defends himself from her mild feigned outrage. "I didn't want to feed you awful cupcakes. Actually, I called Mom and she said I should check them four minutes before the lowest time, and I did, and they looked great. So props to her, too."

The lemon-frosted yellow cupcake is delicious, perfectly light and sweet and wonderful, and she tells him so several times. On her actual birthday, Frank took her out to a pretty nice restaurant in the area near their hotel, and their meal was cut short by a call from Joe. It was just as well. Frank had been distracted by the progress they had made on uncovering the terrorist group's plans, but she had felt guilty every time he had looked into her eyes and she had seen that familiar affection and attraction.

She's thought a lot about that too, about how defensive and angry she was when Ned had been angry at the prospect of her joining the Hardys for another case, especially when she had refused to put a time limit on her trip. She had called him every name in the book, a male chauvinist pig, jealous, spiteful, resentful, untrusting... and the longer she looked at Frank, she saw that Ned was right.

She's married now. It was her choice to say yes to Ned's proposal; it was her choice to walk down the aisle to him. They aren't just living together; they're sharing their lives, and she isn't just herself anymore. Her decisions affect both of them.

She imagined it when they were apart. Being single again, being without him, knowing that telling Ned their marriage had been too hasty would destroy their relationship. While they had been apart she had done what she had been too afraid to do, sleeping beside him, as though he would be able to sense it; she let herself see it through, and saw it as what it was.

Nancy was a child when they met, and the only allure in leaving him is taking a step backward, back to who she was—to who she no longer is, and no longer can be. Being an adult is terrifying. Being a child again is even more terrifying.

"Those presents on the coffee table. Those are for someone else?" She smiles as she licks a last trace of lemon frosting from her fingertips.

"They're for you, sweetheart. They aren't much..." He chuckles when she stands up. "I would tell you not to be excited."

"But I love presents from you. You're an incredible present-finder, Ned."

Sometimes she's slow with the lessons she's learned, and that's another she remembered during their time apart. Early in their relationship, she took his generous nature for granted, believing it was easy for him. He needs her gratitude, though, and she had let herself forget that. Ned would give her the world on a silver platter if he could, and his perpetual awareness that he can't is a strain on him and on their marriage.

She realized while they were apart that another woman would likely be grateful, vocally and probably daily, for all Ned provides—and, for the first time in a long time, she realized that while she might have daydreamed about what her life would be like without the harsh reality of their marriage, he would likely be happier with someone else, without her. After that realization, she had looked forward to their daily messages and occasional calls and Skype sessions even more, reassuring him and herself that staying together was the right thing to do, that her absence wasn't voluntary, not anymore.

He brings a pair of cupcakes to her as she sits down on the couch, and she selects the chocolate-frosted one this time, and he takes a bite of the lemon. She's still incredibly intrigued by that peanut-butter jar—she can tell now that it holds several dozen scraps of paper—but he presents her with the smallest package first, when she's still licking traces of icing from her fingers. Before she scrubs her fingers on a napkin and rips the somewhat battered gift wrap away, she knows she will feel velvet beneath, and she does. In the box she finds an old-fashioned silver ring with a large blue topaz stone in the center, flanked by two smaller stones.

"Oh, Ned! It's beautiful," she says, and turns to give him a kiss. "I love it."

"Mom saw it at that same estate sale, and had the woman running it put it aside so I could come look at it. I thought you might like it." He pats her knee. "I'm sorry."

"About what?"

"I think everything after this will probably be a letdown."

She shakes her head, reaching for the next wrapped gift. Both are approximately the size and shape of hardback books, and when she opens them, she finds that they are both library discards, the covers shrouded in thick heavy-duty plastic covers. One is an omnibus of Raymond Chandler short stories; the other is an Agatha Christie collection.

"I found those at a library book sale. I know they aren't much..." He shrugs.

"No! Ned, come on. They're great. They're really sweet. Thank you." She kisses him again, touching his cheek. "I mean it."

He smiles a little. "When you were gone, I was thinking about you all the time, and then I bought the ring and the books and realized that I was just going to keep buying you things, like it would make you come home faster somehow, and I—I couldn't afford to do that. I wanted to, though." He reaches for the peanut butter jar, sliding it to the edge of the table without picking it up. His voice becomes softer. "Every now and then I wondered if you ever would come home. I know things have been hard... I know that you..." He swallows. "Nan, I never want you to be miserable... I don't. I'm so glad you came home. I want to be with you more than anything. But I don't want you to be sad."

He can't bring himself to say it, and when she cups his face in her palms and turns him so she can look into his face, the pain in his eyes breaks her heart. "I've been so selfish," she says, shaking her head. "And I'm so sorry for that. I've been treating this like nothing has really changed, when everything has. I made a mistake when I left..."

"And I hated that when you left things were still so bad between us..."

She touches his lips gently. "I shouldn't have gone, but as much as it hurt, I'm glad I did. I'm glad I was able to get some perspective on this. I love you, Ned. With my whole heart. I thought that everything would be perfect once we were married, that there would be no problems, no fights, nothing. I wanted it to be simple. And you've been the adult here, while I've been acting like a—a spoiled brat." She knows the words, but it's still hard to say them. "I've been miserable because for the first time in my life, money actually _matters_, and you're the one making it, and you've been so patient with me... but you aren't my father, I'm your _wife_. We're in this together, and all I've done is push you away."

She glances down, taking her own deep breath. "I'm going to get a job, if that's okay with you. Something stable. Maybe something with an agency or a security firm, depending on what's out there—but it's not fair, to expect you to be the only responsible one."

"I just told you, Nan. I don't want you to be unhappy."

She smiles at him. "And I'll find something I can live with, something doing what I love, because _this_, being here with you—I want to be your partner, and part of that is providing for us. Believe me, I don't want to be unhappy either, and I learned over the past few months exactly what that felt like. It made me unhappy to know you were miserable. It made me frustrated, to be working on a case that will only really be resolved after years of hard work, and maybe not even then. It made me unhappy to be away from you for so long. And it made me unhappy when I realized that _I_ had made you miserable—not our fight, and not that you were wrong, because you... you were right. I shouldn't have gone, but I'm back now, and I'm not going to regret what's happened. I don't want to go backward anymore, Ned. I want to be with you, and I want us both to be happy." Her smile fades for a moment. "Unless you think we can't be."

He searches her eyes. "I wasn't sure," he says softly. "I just wasn't. For those first few days, right after you left, I thought that it was the last straw. I thought you—that you'd call me and tell me that you were leaving me for good, that you had agreed to go with Hardy because he was the guy you wanted to be with. And I didn't know how to make you happy. I still don't."

She shakes her head. "After all this? The cupcakes, the flowers, the presents—and more than that, just being with you right now, eating dinner together... I was miserable because I wouldn't let myself be anything else, and honey, it's not your job to _make_ me happy. I had to get out of my own way. It's nothing wrong with you. It's what was wrong with me..."

He brushes his thumb against her lips, gently. "I wish I found that more comforting."

"But, can we try? I... not we. I want to show you... I want to do this better. And I don't want to be apart again."

"I don't either, Nan. And if you find a job you enjoy and you want to take it, I won't stop you. Especially if it lets you stay around here and doesn't take up every weekend." He smiles again, briefly. "I can't believe how much I've missed you. And if you had told me you were going back, or that you were going to do this again..."

She shakes her head. "Never again, Ned. I promise."

He leans forward and kisses her gently, and they're both breathless when they part, his arm looped around her. She rests her head against his shoulder, closing her eyes, the shivering anxiety in her belly beginning to pass. They're going to be okay. She prays they're going to be okay.

"So what's in the peanut butter jar?" she murmurs.

"Oh. When I figured out that I wanted to buy you more than I had money to... I decided to do something that would still show you how I felt about you, even if it didn't cost anything. I cleaned out the jar and when I thought about you, I'd write down... well, something I loved about you, some good memory. Silly, I know..."

"No," she murmurs. "No, it sounds really sweet, Ned. Thanks." She finds his hand and squeezes it gently.

He doesn't protest when she reaches for the jar, but as soon as she opens it, he stands. "I'm gonna... let me go ahead and clean off the grill. It'll be easier."

He's self-conscious, she can tell, so she exchanges a smile with him before he goes to the kitchen, to keep himself occupied while she reads the slips of paper. The jar is practically packed with them. He thought about her often, apparently.

Some of the slips, she could have predicted. Some of them, though, surprise her, bring tears to her eyes with their poignancy.

_the sight of you on our wedding day_

_the first time you cheered for me at a football game_

_when we kissed outside Harrington House_

_those little curls at the nape of your neck_

_our wedding night_

_the first time I held your hand_

_when you bury your head against my shoulder when the alarm goes off_

_your senior prom_

_the last time you visited Emerson_

_the first time I ever held you in my arms_

_the first time you kissed me_

_the fourth time I proposed to you (when you finally said yes!)_

_dancing with you to our song at our wedding_

_waking up with you the day after our wedding_

_last Christmas_

_the way you laugh when I tickle you_

_how your legs feel right after you shave_

_every Christmas we've ever spent together_

_falling asleep with you after a day at the lake house_

_holding you at the arrivals gate at the airport_

_the way you bite your lip when you're painting your toenails_

_when you cuddle up to me on Saturday morning after you're awake_

_the first time I kissed you_

_the way my fingers fit between yours..._

Among the rest she finds two more slips mentioning their wedding night, which she expects; she and Ned decided to wait until that night to make love for the first time, and she remembers it just as fondly as he apparently does. It wasn't the first time they shared a bed, or the first time they had been naked with each other, but it was the first time they took that step.

She loved him then, and she loves him now, and she's more relieved than she can say that that love was strong enough to withstand her disappointment, the changes they've both been through, how awful things were. She only hates how the delay has hurt him.

She scoops up the scraps of paper and carefully sifts them back into the jar, replacing the lid, and wipes her eye before she rises and goes into the kitchen.

Ned's standing at the sink, and she sees him turn his head a little when he hears her come in, but he doesn't face her. She comes up behind him and wraps her arms around him, burying her face against his shoulder blades for a long moment.

"I think that's my favorite present of all the presents you've ever given me," she tells him. "And no, my engagement ring and wedding ring don't count."

"So you liked it, huh." His voice is neutral, but she can hear that he's pleased.

"I never really thought about it like that, but a lot of those are my favorite things too. The first time you helped me out on a case, and every time after that. When you came to dinner to meet my father for the first time, and you were so nervous the whole time. The stubble you have at the end of the day. The little face you make when you're shaving your upper lip."

He washes his hands, dries them off, then turns around and picks her up so her face is on level with his. She brings her knees up, holding his hips between her thighs, and when he moves away from the counter, she wraps her legs around him, interlacing her fingers behind his neck.

"Is that all?"

"Not even close," she murmurs with a smile. "Every single time you've ever kissed me. The expression on your face when you saw me in my wedding dress the first time. Holding you when I thought we had lost each other, when I thought I had lost you forever. The way you yawn when we're both exhausted and about to fall asleep on the couch together. When you tug on my belt loops, and the way my hips fit in your palms. When you kiss my ear before you get out of bed in the morning. The way if there's one cookie left, you split it with me and give me the bigger half. The pride I see on your face when you introduce me to someone as your wife."

"Mm-hmm," he nods, walking toward the bedroom, still carrying her. "And that's all..."

She kisses the point of his jaw. "The way it feels to make love to you," she murmurs. "When you look into my eyes and I'm so happy and loved I feel like I could die."

"Please don't," he murmurs, and kisses her ear. "You're my favorite, Nan. My favorite person in the world. The other half of my heart. And I was so sad when I thought you'd never truly be happy with me, not anymore..."

He sits down on the bed with Nancy still wrapped around him, and she runs her fingers through his hair. "You're my favorite too," she tells him. "Ned, let's start over, okay? It'll be better this time."

"I think some parts, we were doing pretty well..." He leans forward, nuzzling against her earlobe.

"We were," she murmurs, her lashes fluttering down. "Mmm, that's another thing I love, when you do this... and your eyelashes, and your shoulder blades, and the small of your back..."

He chuckles against her neck. "Really?"

"You're a very sexy man, Ned Nickerson."

"And you are an incredibly beautiful woman, Nancy Drew Nickerson."

He takes the hem of her shirt in his hands and pulls it off her, and she tosses her hair, draping her arms over his shoulders again. "If you want to start over, we will," he murmurs. "People told me being married would be hard. I guess we both walked into this a little blind."

She strokes his cheek, then kisses the corner of his mouth. "Yeah," she whispers. "I know I'll never be able to make it up to you..."

He gently moves her back to look into her eyes. "You're here," he says. "Let's just take all the bad stuff, the fights and being angry and all of it, and leave it behind, and just remember all the good things."

She shakes her head. "No," she whispers. "No. I need it. I need to see what's on the other side of the cliff, baby. I never want to go back there, but I never want to forget it's there, either."

He leans back, his palm resting on her bare back, and the light is gold and soft now, along the curve of his eyelashes, against the stubble on his cheek. She's straddling his lap and he's warm and solid and breathing under her, and this is the rest of their lives, starting from this moment, starting from every moment. It's nothing to fear, not the way she feels right now.

She thought that on their wedding day, she could not feel any more in love with him, but she is relieved to find she was wrong.

Her heart is his. Her heart has always been his, and she never wants to be this vulnerable with anyone else.

For a long moment they just lie there after, and then she slowly brings her arms up, wrapping them around him again. He was panting for breath, and he lets out a long sigh, his lips brushing her cheek. "God," he whispers.

"Mmm," she agrees. He props himself up and looks down into her face, and she opens her eyes, gazing up at him. The burnished gold of sunset traces the curve of his cheek, and she cups it gently, tracing her thumb against his brow. He lowers himself to her and she meets his kiss willingly, her hips shifting as his tongue slips against hers.

She opens her eyes again when he breaks their kiss, and he kisses her again, the tip of her nose, her cheekbone, her earlobe. She shivers and draws her fingers through his hair, her other arm still wrapped around him, feeling such love she could just burst with it. She giggles when he hums against her neck, and she's still smiling when he pulls back and looks at her again.

"From this day on," he whispers. "Please..."

She brushes her thumb against his lips, then tips up to kiss him. "For the rest of our lives," she whispers. "Our life together. I want to spend it with you, and I want to make you—no, I want to s_how_ you every day how happy I am to be with you. You've been mine for so long. Let me be yours."

He rolls onto his side, pulling her with him and into his embrace. "I love you."

"And I love you." She presses her lips to his, her lashes fluttering down again, and whispers against his skin, "I can't wait to show you how much."


End file.
